A Comedy of Errors
by seatbeltdrivein
Summary: Going into the emperor's employ was a quick way to land a price on one's head. Hohenheim found that out the hard way. Pre-series.


_Written for Cornerofmadness for the fmagiftexchange community's Equivalent Exchange charity round. Thanks goes to enemytosleep for the awesome beta job! ^^_

.

.

.

.

Being the emperor's advisor was a familiar occupation, if nothing else. At times, Hohenheim even found himself able to pretend that it was nearly two hundred years before, and he was studying within King Xerxes' private library – but something would inevitably happen, some small reminder would make itself known, and he would once again be thrown directly into the future and back to Xing.

Though perhaps this time, _small_ wasn't quite the word for the reminder.

The sound of displaced air was the first hint of reality returning with a vengeance. The second was a searing pain in his neck, followed by a moment in which he found he could no longer breathe. In the sudden rush of panic, Hohenheim could hear movement behind him – another assassin? It seemed the more time he spent in the emperor's presence, the more of these folks Hohenheim ran into.

It was beginning to grow tedious.

Perhaps tedious wasn't the right word, though: there was the matter of having an arrow, not just _in_ his neck, but sticking straight through the other side. He could barely bring himself to touch it, to confirm it was actually there. This was ludicrous of course: every move he made, no matter how minuscule, pulled something awful. There was also the matter of not being able to breath. He knew he probably needed to remove the arrow, but –

It was going to hurt. _Terribly._

There wasn't a whole lot he could do about that, though. He couldn't very well walk around the palace grounds with an arrow through his neck! No, he was regarded 'strange' as he ordinarily was.

The courtyard was still eerily silent. Whoever the would-be-assassin was, they hadn't stuck around. Considering their remarkable marksmanship, Hohenheim didn't blame them. It was peculiar, really, how one moment he could be reading a scroll, and the next he could be knocked sideways from the bench, flailing. Possibly he needed to pay more attention to his surroundings, but it was just so easy to lose awareness!

Wincing, Hohenheim wiggled one end of the arrow with the tip of a finger. It even _sounded_ terrible, like he was trying to rearrange the inside of his throat and –

Well, to be honest, it left him feeling a bit ill.

There was a murmur of something inside him, a voice sifting upward through the constant hum to say, _you're aware that you can't regenerate tissue with the arrow still there, correct? _

"Of course, I know that," Hohenheim said – or tried to. The motion managed to shift the arrow enough that he could let out a rasping parody of his usual voice. He sounded terrible. "I was just about to pull it out."

The ensuing silence said enough.

"I can take my time, you know," Hohenheim continued, nearly wincing at the scratchy, gasping quality of his voice. "It's not like I have a shortage of it."

Only, he apparently _did_ have a shortage of time. At the very moment the words left his mouth, a servant girl stepped into the courtyard, likely to escort him to dinner. The young woman took one look at Hohenheim, now sitting back on the bench and looking mortally wounded, and let out an abrupt shriek before collapsing to the ground in a tiny heap.

Hohenheim cocked his head to the side, which sent searing pains down to his fingers. _I should have seen that coming._

He'd need to get her back inside. With any luck, when he roused the poor girl, she'd take it all for a bad dream. Perhaps he could play it off as a trick of the light?

_It's night_, a voice supplied helpfully.

"There _are_ lanterns," Hohenheim argued. "It could work!" Then he caught himself. He probably needed to stop answering the denizens of his soul aloud. As terrible as he sounded, it could only make the situation worse if he was overheard.

Again.

Getting to his feet, Hohenheim stooped down to grab the scroll from where it had fallen on the ground. The servant hadn't yet stirred from her dead faint, which was quite fortunate for Hohenheim.

It was going to be nearly impossible to explain this to her – especially after the week before. She'd already pulled a dagger from his back with the excuse that it 'hadn't gone in all the way'. Somehow, he didn't think she'd take the same excuse twice.

Plucking at the end of the arrow again, Hohenheim let out a terse sigh.

Resigned, Hohenheim tucked the scroll into one of the many pockets of his robes. Then he took hold of the pointed end of the shaft, and pulled hard. The arrow slid a few fingers' widths before coming to a stop, still deeply embedded. Shoulders dropping, he went to rouse the poor girl. It seemed he'd need her help removing this, despite his hopes of healing before she awoke. She definitely wouldn't take the same excuse – not with the arrow still running clear through his neck.

If anything, it would make for excellent gossip in the palace, and Hohenheim knew full well how much the emperor enjoyed _that_.


End file.
